


A String of Words With No Meaning

by orphan_account



Series: Matchstick Hearts [2]
Category: Grand Theft Auto V
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Eventual Smut, F/M, Multi, One-Shot Collection, Polyamory, a bunch of one shots about criminals being domestic and shit, metions of past-abuse, slow burn smut, though it really isn't anything bad
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-17
Updated: 2015-05-20
Packaged: 2018-03-30 22:29:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3954196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is the story of a woman, barely old enough for the world she lives in, and how she copes.</p><p>Or</p><p>A bunch of one-shots loosely baised off of the blurb I wrote called "Babygirl", in whatever order I write them and with no set timeline.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Wayward

**Author's Note:**

> Instead of making a bunch of single posts and clogging up the feed, I'm going to but all the random little prompts in this one area. Keeps things nice and organized.

_Wayward_

_adjective:_   
_turned or turning away from what is right or proper; willful; disobedient_

 

You weren't the perfect child; being the only one (that you knew of) belonging to your parents, everything was on you. No one could be blamed for the dishes not being done, or why you didn't come home on time. So when your mother died suddenly the summer you turned sixteen, you couldn't lean on anyone when you really needed it, and your father inadvertently pulled you into his life of crime. Liberty City was the easiest place to make a living on the streets, and what started as you running drugs and money for a small gang quickly evolved for you shadow leading it, and making damn good money doing it.

It had been that way for years, and even after the city fell too far for your comfort and you fled for the opposite coast and away from your father, crime was in your bones. San Andreas hadn't been kind - too many men looking at you with hungry eyes and knives in their hands - and so you bypassed Los Santos for the small desert community to its northeast. Sandy Shores was just that; sandy, with a lake shore covered in used needles and trash. For you, the small trailer you bought was just enough to sustain you while you laid low after a gunfight gone wrong in San Andreas, and the people that lived near you were either too strung out on meth to care, or criminals themselves and so you were left alone.

That was, until someone took notice of you, the neighbor across the road named Trevor. The man was older than you by at least ten years, with a balding head and crazy brown eyes that sometimes stared too long at you through your front window. Garish tattoos decorated his body, and by the things he yelled at all hours of the night, he was a meth dealer (and you were sure he must smoke it too). It started with him staring at you everytime you left or came home, and then you noticed that if you left your lights on at night, he would look into your window from his front porch. It had been two months, and although he'd made no move to talk to you, his presence was something you'd come to expect on a daily basis.

You'd just come home from the supermarket, with the evening sun burning hot on your back as you pulled into the driveway with the top off your little four by four, when you noticed a car parked not too far from your trailer. It wasn't anything that would stand out, except for the clear bulletproofing that had been done to the back panels and hood, or the five gangsters that road in it. You swore under your breath, and without looking jumped out and hurried inside, throwing your bags of food in the fridge. From behind your couch you pulled out an assault rifle, loading it and then making sure all your lights were out before taking post behind your door. The car rolled forward on the road, slowly passing your trailer before rolling down the street, looking like they were going to drive off. Unlikely. You breathed out heavily, deciding that confronting them now would be better before they called in reinforcements.

Rushing to your bedroom you grabbed another magazine and a sniper rifle from under the bed, loading it and almost killing yourself when someone knocked loudly at your door. With your finger on the trigger of your rifle you opened the blinds, startled to see Trevor  standing on the other side, locking eyes with you and pointing at the door. You let him in, more afraid that he'd try something than you were of the gangsters getting a shot off.

"Now ma'am, I may not have been born yesterday, but someone like you doesn't normally attract that kind of attention." His voice was just as you'd always heard; gruff and stern, but now it was quiet, barely a whisper. He glanced down at the rife in your hand and let out a low whistle. "And that is a mighty big gun for a little lady." You sighed, running a hand through your hair.

"Yeah, I know how it looks. But if those guys are who I think they are, then I'll need it." You turned back and slung the sniper over your shoulder, mindful of your tank top straps that now felt too exposed under the man's sharp gaze.

"Don't beat around the bush toots; I know a bunch of gangsters when I see them." He stepped towards you, boots thumping heavily on the linoleum. "What I want to know, is what they want with you." You swallowed, not wanting to spill your life to him, but seeing as he could kill you at any second, you gave up.

"I don't know who you thought I would be, but I'm not clean. I got into some trouble with a gang up in San Andreas; low level back then, but still big enough that when I killed a few of their men, they ran me out." You fiddled with the strap across your chest, unable to meet his intense stare. "I wound up here, hoped they'd forget and leave me alone. Guess my luck ran out." You glanced around then, looking at him and the small amount of possessions you'd collected in the few months. "I just hate having to leave now, I just got settled."

A few heartbeats passed in silence, the only sound being the wind that whistled from under the door and through the cracks in the windows. Trevor stepped forwards again, until he was less than a foot from you, and you could smell aftershave and deodorant coming off him. His face was set in concentration, pupils blown until his eyes were almost black, and you couldn't deny how sensual it all felt.

"I don't give a shit what you did to them, but no one in this town does anything without me knowing, and that includes you. So, if they're after you, I'm after them." Trevor reached out, brushed a strand of hair away from your face in what was almost a caring way before turning around and flinging open your door, yelling at you as he stomped down your steps. "Come on, Babygirl, let's go kill us some motherfuckers!" For a split second, the nickname made your heart stop. Years of dealing with the underground made you hate nicknames, anything that made you feel more used that you did, but coming out of him, it really was endearing. You threw your keys into the pocket of your shorts before marching out of the trailer, making sure to close the door behind you.

You ran after him, following him into his truck where you both sped off in search of the car. You found it not too far away, and as soon as you got in their sights they peeled away, and Trevor hit the gas hard enough for you to knock your head against the headrest. You chased them for a while, until they ended up almost rolling in a sand dude, giving you the chance to aim down the sight of your rifle and take out the driver and have the car swerve into the ditch. Trevor was hooting and hollering, pulling out his own gun and getting out of the truck, while you stumbled out not far behind. Four men got out, most without weapons ready and you two quickly  took them out before any of them could get a shot off. Your hands were shaking, adrenaline and disuse of the firearm making your bones ache, and just looking at them bleeding out on the road made you sick and elated. With them dead, and hoping that no more would come, you could stop hiding.

Relief washed over you, tuned out the victory speech Trevor was giving to the corpses and filled your eyes with hot tears, until you couldn't hold yourself up anymore and fell to the dusty road with a sob stuck in your throat. Years of feeling powerless, of running away and following orders from people, all ended on the side of a mountain road next to your crazy neighbor. How long you sat there, you didn't know, but you could make out Trevor's boots next to your hands, and for a moment you thought he'd kill you too, but it passed when he kneeled in front of you. You looked up into his wild eyes, taking in his macabre tattoo across his neck and the worried look etched around years of scars.

"Hey, what's with the waterworks, babe?" He didn't move to touch you like back in your trailer, but his hands were twitching, from the meth or what you couldn't begin to guess. "Don't tell me you weren't going to kill them." He cocked his head almost comically. "I didn't take your kills, did I? God I feel like a dick." You laughed then, laughed so hard you thought you were going to pass out from the stars in your eyes.

"You're insane, you know that?" He grinned at you, and just that made you feel on top of the world. "No, you didn't take anything from me. I'm just so glad not to be afraid anymore, ya know?" With gritty hands you wiped the tears off your flushed face, not complaining when he brushed them aside to do it himself. When you were finished he pulled you to your feet, took your guns and put them on the floor of his truck before climbing in himself, cracking the stereo and patting the passenger seat.

"Come on, Babygirl, let's hit the road! See if we can cause any more mayhem before sunrise!" In that moment, caught between a dead cartel and a murderous meth-addict, you made a choice. You'd die doing this all over again if it meant being looked at like he'd been looking at you all night. With a laugh you jumped in, not missing the look he gave when you tied your hair up and brushed the dirt off your legs before you took off into the night with the smell of gunpowder in your nose and a wayward hope in your heart. 


	2. Thespian

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I don't think Lester gets enough credit; smart, able to get you money whenever you need it, good with computers. Dude deserves more love than he gets. I hope that maybe my writing about him will make you love him like we love him.

_Thespian_

 

"Quit being such a _thespian_ and let me work for five minutes!" Lester wasn't quite raising his voice, but it was as close as he got, and so you shut your mouth and continued to lay on his couch. Your feet softly swung as you hung them over the arm, one of your hands tracing a pattern on your exposed stomach and the other laying limp off the side. Sometimes, in these times where there wasn't a heist to prepare for and all your boys were busy, you were glad for Lester's immense patience. You could do this, lay there near him and whine dramatically, for hours without truly being board. Sure, sometimes he'd really need to concentrate and would kindly ask you to leave, but most of the time he seemed to like you being there, even if it was just to make a noise that his house didn't.

For a while you did just lay there, trying to be quiet in case he was doing something important, and you'd almost dozed off in the late spring afternoon when he spoke up again.

"You know, I didn't mean that. What I said." He was quiet, but never sheepish; the genius knew when he was wrong and when he wasn't. "I like it when you talk, even if it's about nothing, and even when it does interrupt me." You smiled then, not opening your eyes but instead swinging your legs so your ankles knocked together softly. You purposefully waited until he'd began typing again before whispering softly.

_"In faith I do not love thee with mine eyes,_   
_For they in thee a thousand errors note..."_

Lester groaned then, wadding up a piece of paper and throwing it at your head, making you giggle. "That doesn't mean you need to start with that old english bullshit, babe." You poke your tongue out at him, cracking an eye open to catch him looking at you fondly. With a sigh you stretched out, throwing your arms above your head.

"How am I supposed to woo you if you don't like Shakespeare?" You whined, playfully trying to pester him without making him upset. You could hear him snort, fingers dancing over the keys again.

"Not with that garbage, I can assure you." With a smile you looked around the space, half thinking of dozing off until you spotted the ukulele on the floor. Franklin had won it one time on the pier and given it to you, and while being a hideous shade of yellow, you still took a week out of your life to learn how to play. With a grunt you hauled yourself off the couch, legs numb from the hour you'd lay there and walked over to pick it up, mindful of the cords laying on the floor. You'd tripped once, throwing Lester into a panic first over your health, then if you'd unplugged something.

Once back in your favorite position you thumbed the strings, plucking out a tune before strumming softly, slowly finding the tune you were thinking of.

_"I think the universe is on my side_   
_Heaven and Earth have finally aligned_   
_Days are good and that's the way it should be."_

Personally, you didn't think you had a nice singing voice, but the few times you'd let your walls down in front of the boys they'd complimented you, so you took it in stride. Nothing showy from you as you plucked out the song you'd heard on the radio lately, letting the tone and volume of your voice come out naturally until you sang with ease. By the time you'd finished, you hadn't noticed Lester had wheeled himself closer to you, and that he was as relaxed as his body could be with eyes half lidded behind his glasses. You finished, chord lingering in the air and something sweet lingering between your bodies. You looked over, eyes catching his and he smiled, leaning over to catch your lips in a kiss that stole the breath from your lungs.

"That, Babygirl, is how you woo me." With another peck he rolled back to his desk, settling himself back into his work while you pulled chords from the strings in a daze, smiles back on both of your faces as the city around you kept going at it's too fast pace.


	3. Goldfish

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We have a beta fish named Lil' Puddin' Tater, and when our last one died, we swore we'd never replace him.

_Goldfish_

 

They weren't supposed to live as long as they did, the two red and black goldfish you'd gotten on a whim because they matched the decor of Franklin's place. When you'd brought them with you one day you'd gone up to spend the weekend, he'd thought they were adorable.

"Let's name them." You'd whispered from your seat on the floor next to his couch, your arms laying on the coffee table and your head resting on them, watching the two swim around in their large glass bowl. Franklin had laughed, stretched out on the couch behind you, all muscle and skin from being in the pool.

"Aight Baby, what do you want to name them?" The soft beeping from his phone told you he was texting someone, only half paying attention to you.

"Bonnie and Clyde." He made a soft noise in the back of his throat, reaching down to blindly card his hands through your hair. "What? They're like us, two creatures in love in a world of crime, only they're goldfish."

"I ain't sayin' nothin' Babygirl. If you wanna name them Bonnie and Clyde, that's what they'll be."

For the rest of the weekend, you watched them swimming while he made phone calls, and when you both lay on the couch to watch a movie, they seemed to watch it too. At night you fed them, wished them goodnight before you joined Franklin in bed, and when you woke up the first place you went was to them. After the weekend was over and you went home, they stayed with him, looking so perfect amongst his furniture that you couldn't put them away. While you were gone, you'd ask about them, and he'd always said they were fine.

It wasn't until you'd gone on a heist, the first one in a while, and it took the group a few days to get back that they'd died. With no one around to feed them, they'd gone from hunger, and by the time you'd rushed through the door they were long dead. While you weren't sad, you were certainly disappointed. Franklin tried to console you, promising you a new pair as you gave them a burial in his guest bathroom toilet, but you turned him down.

"They were beautiful while they were here, but replacing them feels like cheating." He'd carried you back to the bedroom then, laying you down and stripping you of your clothes before pulling you into his warm body.

"Kinda like you, I guess." Your hands idly traced the faint tattoos on his chest, ones you could draw now in your sleep. "You're the most beautiful girl I've ever seen, and if you were gone, I couldn't replace you." With a squeal of tenderness you leaned up to kiss his plump lips, laying your head back on his chest. His large hands ran over your back and down your hair, soothing you into a soft sleep filled with ponds and goldfish that glimmered like metals under the water. 


	4. Tachycardia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tachycardia: an unusually fast heartbeat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unfortunately, I've got no idea what a panic attack feels like, but from talking to my younger brother who has them almost daily, I just took what he told me and translated it.

_Tachycardia_

 

Sometimes, nights were hard for you; it wasn't the time itself, the darkness was more often than not your friend. It was the sleeping that caused you trouble, nightmares that ripped you out of bed with fears of long past anxiety, often in a cold sweat with your heart in your throat. Living in Los Santos had been okay for a while, you'd been too busy with getting settled and doing your first job with the new crew that sleep was always too deep for anything to wake you.

One early morning was all it took to break your cycle, one nightmare about a dark alley back home was all it took to give you a full blown panic attack that had you grasping your chest in your sweat soaked bed. Everything was too loud, your ragged breaths, your heart pounding in your ears, the sound of Los Santos traffic outside your window. After a minute you realized this crippling feeling in your chest wasn't going away, and as you got more light headed, you scrambled for your phone and dialed the first number in your list. After a few rings, Michael picked up.

"Mmh, yeah?" Suddenly you felt bad, he'd been asleep, but the tears bubbling over your eyes made you push forward.

"Mikey, I'm sorry, I can't..." Your voice cracked and you broke, sobbing into the receiver. You could hear shuffling on the other line, and a few quiet grunts before his voice came in a little clearer.

"Baby, what's wrong? Are you okay?" Truthfully, you weren't. Your chest hurt, you couldn't breathe, and your nose had started leaking.

"I think-" You coughed hard enough to see stars. "I'm having a panic attack." More shuffling, and you realized your vision was starting to get fuzzy. Every breath you took hurt, and what little air you were getting in burned.

"Shh, calm down. I'm in the car now, I'm heading to you." You could hear his car starting, the loud engine he loved revving up and taking off. The thought of him being here kept you calm enough, but the shaking and crying wouldn't go away. "Stay with me honey, I'm just a little bit away. Keep talking to me sweetie." It was his lover and dad voice, the one that could calm and charm the pants off of anyone he used it on.

"I was so afraid." You choked out, throat tight from crying. He made a humming noise, confirming he'd heard you. "I need you." He sighed, and you could hear his car coming up your street.

"I'm here baby, just give me a sec I'll be there." He hung up then and you wished you could get up to meet him at the door, but your body was so rigid you didn't think you could move if you wanted to. Michael came quickly up to your bedroom, dressed in sweats and a jacket that was partially zipped up his chest, and in any other time you'd have jumped him. But now, curled around yourself in the middle of your bed, haloed by the window beside you, you just reached out and sobbed. You felt so childish, so breakable and yet when he rushed forward and scooped you up in his arms you couldn't care. Your heart was beating wildly now, sobs making you shake violently in his arms and clutch at his jacket like a lifeline.

It took almost an hour for you to come down from the attack, and through the whole thing Michael held you against him, hands in your hair or down your back, whispering things in your ear and rocking you until the tears had stopped and you could breathe again. He'd shifted you both so that he was lay against the headboard with you against his chest between his legs. You both lay there, in the silence that two people can have together, as you caught your breath.

"Can I get you anything?" Shaking your head, you almost said yes, wanted to ask for water and sex and a shower, but having him lay there was all you could think of. His hands worked your tense muscles along your shoulders, strong yet soft, until you were a puddle.

"Will you stay?" Your voice was hoarse, tongue heavy and sticky in your mouth. Michael shushed you, shifted your bodies until you both lay tangled in the sheets and threw his jacket off. The heavy smell of his musk and the lingering of cologne from his clothes coated your mind until everything was _Michael_. The feeling of his skin against yours was euphoric, and you couldn't help kissing the skin of his chest just before the hair started. He chuckled, kissing your forehead and leaving his lips to linger against your skin.

"Of course, Babygirl. Get some sleep, I'll be here." Tucking yourself even closer, you let sleep take over, letting his heartbeat in your ear be the metronome that put you to sleep.


	5. A Spoonful of Sugar Makes the Lies Go Down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is in dedication for my best friend El, who's going through some shit right now and asked me to write something for her. 
> 
> Hey, Sis, this one is for you, but you knew that already. Life is shitty, and even though I'll always be here for you, just remember that you're made of stardust, even if you don't feel like it.

There's no man alive that you can't destroy; Of course, that notion didn't come easily. You'd worked hard for your confidence, the strength and walls you've made all built on heartbreak and the bodies of many fallen men. In a world where your innocence was both a gift and how you got on the sharp end of a knife, there were rules for a reason; to protect you physically and emotionally, because when you're gripping the handle of a gun at the ripe age of eighteen with your first lover at the end of the barrel, you start to make rules.

 

_Rule One: Love is something little girls believed in when they picture the knight on a horse_. Love was for people who didn't run drugs and money for a gang in the middle of Liberty City, and it certainly wasn't for you. Even when you fell hard for a man years your senior and almost your rank, let him show you the glittering lights of the city through rose-tinted glasses and bubbles of cheap champagne, there was no love. No, because whatever you felt for him was still you falling, and falling hurts in the end when you come crashing back to earth. For you, it was when you continued to climb the ladder of respect amongst the men of the underground, and one day someone approached you in an alley. He was a rat; not literally, but in job title it fit. Small, skinny enough to crawl through the pipes and ducts, he brought information to the gang from hard-to-hear sources. He leaned just far enough out of a door so you could hear him whisper about the man you'd been sleeping with before he scurried off on silent feet, leaving you livid with hot tears clinging to your lashes.

 

You'd killed him an hour later, a crack pipe dangling from his mouth and a plea on his lips that he never got out. It was your first vengeance kill, and damn if it didn't put a poison in your veins. The early morning hours found you with a bottle in your hand and fumes in the back of your throat so dense you thought you might breathe fire. It wasn't the last time you'd let a man in your bed, but it would be a very long time before you could say you wanted one there.

 

_The second rule: Fight like a girl, with passion that you wouldn't feel for all the lovers in the world_. You learned to be coy, to deceive and lure with your looks, trap people in your cage where you would string them up and bleed them out. In Liberty City, women didn't run gangs, but they could behind closed doors, and that's what you did. The front man was kind enough, strung out on heroin most times and trusted you to get things done when he was lost in his own mind. It came at a price, however, when people found out and ran you out of your hometown so fast you barely had time to grab all the cash from under your mattress before you had a bullet in your side and a price on your head.

 

Travelling across the country by train proved your need to have fighting skills, because no matter what city you crashed in someone wanted you dead. You avoided the south as best you could, stayed north were bodies would freeze before you could make it across the county lines. There were a few times you wish they'd killed you back then, instead of slowly dying on the road with one foot off a proverbial cliff that would end with you in a shallow grave. You were constantly afraid of what lie ahead, one wrong step and you'd fall; into drugs, the bottom of a bottle, into the arms of someone who would trap you like a moth in a jar.

 

Rule number three was created the minute you set foot on the west coast: _People are never who you want them to be_. Botox fixed faces, and the glamour of San Andreas was like putting glitter on a gunshot wound, it just made the ugly pretty in the light. But for a while, it was good, you quickly fell into a gang that welcomed your skill with your gun and a sharp eye for deception. The money was good for a while, until you started to hear whispers that tasted like blood - your skills could only go so far, and if you didn't get out now, things would get ugly. It hurt worse this time, you'd been taken in by a few of the guys and for the first time in a long time, you felt wanted. They didn't care about if you were running jobs quickly, or if your turnover was good; you thought they'd cared for you. Everything changed overnight, when you said you were leaving the gang they flipped like a switch. You couldn't believe you'd almost loved them, and somewhere deep inside you cracked in a way that couldn't be fixed.

 

You felt bad back then, having to leave them bleeding out in the tiny apartment with no idea if anyone would come before they died. By the time you drove into Los Santos, you'd made a decision; no more big cities, no more gangs. You avoided the tantalizing lights of the town in favor of going out the little desert community of Sandy Shores, where your remaining money went into buying a tiny trailer that thankfully wasn't infested with bugs.

 

Too bad you had listened to your mom before she died, maybe you would have ended up better if you would've ignored all her talk of stardust in your bones and love in your heart. The first night in that drafty single-wide was the worst of your life, alone for the first time in months and afraid of being found, you'd cried for the first time in years. Everything was too much, the feeling of helplessness, of dying alone and hated, with no idea how it felt to be loved and happy. This wasn't the way you'd wanted it to go, wishing for ending without stories behind them, that carried less weight on your chest. If only you could know what you did later, months later, when you were worshiped and exalted like a goddess, kissed as much as you desired to be, and smiled not from your face but straight from your soul.

 

But time is cruel, and the future is as unclear to you as the past makes you sick at night. For the time, you went into the little bathroom without turning on the light, and washed your face. The cool water stung your flushed face, your eyes feeling gritty and your throat raw, but in the mirror you could see how young you still looked, despite everything you'd been through. In that moment, you decided not to run anymore, to face your problems with the hope in your heart that things would get better.

 

And better they got.

**Author's Note:**

> If there are any mistakes, or if you want to request a prompt or things, please leave me a comment and let me know! I do see all of them, even if I don't reply, and they really make my day.
> 
> The prompts I use are all from this super nice list I found! You can find it here too!
> 
> http://birdsonqs.deviantart.com/art/435-Writing-Prompts-324874505


End file.
